App marketplace for Facebook pages Appbistro has expanded its scope today and announces its transition to Appstores.com. Like a non-enterprise Appia, Appstores will offer publishers the ability to create their own app stores like a (hypothetical) https://apps.beta.techcrunch.com or http://apps.simplegeo.com. Says Appbistro founder Ryan Merket, “Every single company we talked to wanted their own app store.” So they made the decision to solve that problem.
The Facebook-centric Appbistro platform will continue with business as usual and be one branch of the many pronged Appstores.com network. Merket says that he has no plans of charging publishers for the service and one idea for a potential revenue stream is sponsored placement across the network of app stores, for example if a developer wants to highlight his app on TechCrunch’s appstore.
Merket is working with a number of partners including SimpleGeo and Constant Contact in order to build a network of white-label appstores, with the premise of giving app developers distribution. The store will support iPhone, Android, Web and basically any kind of apps developers build.
Since its launch at Disrupt, Appbistro has been responsible for 50K business app installs, 40K active users and has been responsible for creating 100 plus fan apps apps for Facebook. They have also hooked up with Personera to bring their Facebook app partners the ability to turn their Facebook pages into real life print products like calendars.
Interested parties can sign up for the free beta today. Here’s a mockup of what a custom app store will look like below.
